Drive Slow

~Shared by Khalid McCaskill~

Chip Hooper was a funny man.

It’s late October and I am at CHOMP with Max and Chip. Chip had suffered a stroke just the week before but was seemingly getting better by the hour. After spending 14 hours in the room sharing stories, eating Lil Swiss and Chinese food, its time for me to go home. I had been staying at the house in Carmel and driving Chip’s car to and from the hospital.

As I am looking around for the keys, Chip says “Khalid, I need you do to me a favor.”

“Yea, Chip. What’s going on?” I respond.

“When you get back to the house, I need you to take the weed that is in my trunk and put it in the garage.”

“Oh for sure Chip. Will do.”

“Thanks. It shouldn’t be much. Probably around 4 pounds.”

“Yea, yea no doubt. I will take care of that.”

Of course, I try to play it cool but deep down my heart is racing. The thoughts running through my head include, “what if I get pulled over?”; “will they believe that it doesn’t belong to me?”; “I’m going to prison”; “I won’t do well in prison.” Bottom line, I’m scared out of my mind!

I grab the keys, head to the parking lot and start the longest 15 minute drive of my life. On the entire drive home, I checked the rear view mirror for a cop every 7 seconds and I did not crack 15 miles per hour once.

Finally, I get to the house. I pull up to the driveway,  hop out of the car and open the trunk. I look around for a good ten seconds and there is no weed in the trunk. Zero. I open the back door. Look around. Nothing… This man Chip really pranked me.

The next morning I drive back to the hospital. After Chip wakes up, I tell him there was no weed in the car. He starts cracking up and says “sorry about that, I must have had someone get it out a couple of weeks ago.”

While I am still recovering from this traumatic experience, it taught me an important lesson.  

No matter the situation, Chip always made time to laugh.

We all should too.